'Bloody good' to be home, says Wood

CANBERRA - Douglas Wood, the 63-year-old Australian engineer rescued last week from kidnappers in Iraq, flew into Melbourne yesterday to a joyful reunion with his family but with questions still surrounding his release.

There remain conflicting accounts of how Iraqi and United States troops discovered the house where he was being held captive, claims that his release was delayed by an earlier bungled rescue attempt, and reports that his captors had agreed to set him free later in the day of his release.

But after 47 days in captivity, during which he was denied medication for serious medical conditions, moved between two houses and was often in fear of his life, Wood was overjoyed to be home.

"It feels bloody good," he told reporters after landing at Melbourne's Tullamarine Airport to be met by his American wife, Yvonne Given, and the brothers whose televised appeals and offers of donations to the Iraqi people played a key role in the campaign to set him free.

"I'm just so excited and so happy and so grateful," Given said. "I never lost faith."

Wood's fate was unknown following his capture by a group calling itself Shura Council of the Mujahideen of Iraq, and the distribution of video footage of Wood begging for his life and relaying his captors' demands for the withdrawal of Australian, US and British troops from Iraq.

Two subsequent videos were made, one of which was not publicly released, but Wood said yesterday that he was still not sure who the kidnappers were: "Obviously my head is intact so it wasn't al Qaeda."

Australian negotiators flew to Baghdad to try to secure his release, helped by experts from the US, Britain and other countries whose nationals had also been captured and held hostage.

The spiritual leader of Australia's Muslims, Sheik Taj Aldin Alhilali also flew to Iraq to help find and free Wood, at one stage igniting controversy by claiming to have evidence that the still-hidden engineer was alive and well.

Alhilali returned to Sydney yesterday, claiming that Wood's captors had originally sought a A$25 million ransom, but that they had subsequently agreed to release him at 6pm last Wednesday, the day troops found him bound and concealed beneath a blanket in a Baghdad house.

He told the ABC Lateline programme that the group holding him when Iraqi troops burst in had been using the house as a transit station for his release, and had been unarmed because they wanted to deliver Wood safe and well.

"They didn't know who these forces were because they had agreed to deliver him to me, so they had good reason to be frightened for Douglas' life from any forces who attacked this house, of course," he said.

It still remains uncertain how Wood was discovered, with conflicting reports that the raid was either the result of a tip-off or a chance discovery during sweeps by the Iraqi Army and US troops.

Yesterday Prime Minister John Howard said Australian officials in Iraq had confirmed that the discovery was the result of a "sweep and cordon" operation, during which troops had been told that specific houses should be searched.

Howard also denied reports, first aired in the Sydney Morning Herald, that Wood's release had been delayed by a bungled rescue bid by Australian forces.

In his Melbourne press conference yesterday Wood was reluctant to discuss details of his ordeal or his emotions during it, other than to say that he had at times feared for his life.

"Frankly, I'd like to apologise to both President Bush and Prime Minister Howard for the things I said under duress [in the video released by his captors]," Wood said. "I actually believe that I am proof positive that the current policy of training the Iraqi Army works, because it was the Iraqis that got me out."